Real-time memoir of the coming year (5/20/14 – 15) and the achievement of a life-long dream

Archive for the category “CRITICISM”

Door knobs burn in my hand as I turn them, so I leave the inside ones open. Even the floor burns the bottoms of my feet, so: shoes, but they burn also. These words too, all words, whether I think or say or read them, they all burn now. Sometimes./

To hear them, these ones here, spoken aloud in this room today — w/ no one aside from me listening, no music playing, nothing baking — to hear them without burning, what I would give for that! To be back there, here but back then, in my dream of life again, where it was plenty warm enough, what I would give./

There were times I’d think I must have come from there to here through someplace really cold. I’d think, could I have died that day? That day I “wakened” to the smell of all my pies burning and you knocking as loud as you could on the door. “What’s burning? Are you okay? What’s going on with your hair?”/

We threw the pies into the garden, laughing. You cut my hair in the kitchen to help fix me back up as we aired the place out. “What happened, though? Did you fall asleep? Since when do you bake pies and for what?” I opened you some wine and we spent the rest of the day together./

But I watched the pies slowly disappear alone. It took weeks and then one downpour finally carried the rest away./

Today, I know I came through someplace really cold to get here. Why else, how else, could touching these now — these plastic keys — burn me so? So that the plainest words/thoughts, uttered as plainly as I can manage, are birds barely escaping a flame and then at the very last second returning or just stopping, letting it happen, letting it wrap them and hold them in its hot hands until they turn to ash?/

There is always “burn” here, but I’ve begun to wonder if it might be okay for a time./

After all, crying now is like climbing a tree—but on another planet. Crying: Why? How? It doesn’t happen here, I don’t think, but I’m not completely sure (having learned about evaporation so long ago). I do know it’s not okay not to cry ever./

I know too that today nothing is baking, no music is playing, and no one knocks or doesn’t knock at the door. And I know I didn’t die that day. I am being still and quiet, no more words aloud for now, dreaming of when I was “just warm enough” and wishing I could cry, here or on some other planet, any planet (except Mercury, Venus)./

And yet. Even though these words, my memories, the door, the floor, the bottoms of me feet — ALL of it burns, all of it is burning me — I begin to think it could all turn out all right, that one day I will be just warm enough again.

***

THIS is a repost, thanks. I’ve been gone from here for SIX long months. I consider it a bit of providence that I log back in tonight, after several days (weeks? months?) of thinking about this blog AND THIS POEM especially, and find that BURN is the one-word daily prompt. Today. When I log back in … But so, I have nothing new here now, I don’t think, am exhausted, but I jump back in to this — everything — holding the hand of my 47-year-old self from two years ago. I trust no one more.

Worried that you or someone you love is not completely normal? Have no fear because there’s another option here in the USA. It’s called: being GREAT. So if you (or someone you love) is having a bit of a struggle “blending in,” then it’s good to know that being great is also “OK.” Some people, not all, think it’s even better — particularly those who suspect they are not completely normal and may in fact be great. The point is, you gotta be OK, so if completely normal’s not your thing (and it isn’t for everybody), you need only to excel in some area that completely normal people think is normal if not great (admittedly there may be the rub). But if you can pull it off, then you’re probably going to do alright. And doing alright is pretty much the same as being OK. You may even do great at being great, which is the best, I’ll bet.

WHAT YOU DON’T want, from what I understand, is to be … well, some other thing. And there are LOTS of other things, so it’s super easy to fall into that trap — nothing to freak out about, more something just to be aware of. I’ll give you some examples when I get back to this and you’ll be like, “Oh I know that person.” Or, “I married that person.” Or, hold onto your hose, “I AM that person.” But it’s not too late, I don’t think, to make it OK.

Anyway, I’ve been hearing lots of confusing/conflicting things about what’s normal — pretty much all my life — but really have only heard great things about being great, so I’m going to look a little further into what it takes to be great. I’ll let you know what I learn.